Monday, November 27, 2006

Gut Check

Are you trying to get in my pants? I asked her when she said yes to throwing away a big pile of stuff.

She smiled. That should be a benefit of marriage.

I stopped- I was afraid we'd start to argue and I'd lose the chance to heave the ugly, wooden shelves we've been holding onto but not using for the last ten years.

In the process, I came across a box of my old writing. In it was sections of my old journal. Back in the early days of DOS and giant, flimsy disks for saving, I tended to print things out to save them.

I wrote this in November, 1992:

"Seems I have a girlfriend who thinks nothing of spending all of her time and energy on everything else but her relationship., which of course is the only thing in her life with any room to give. And I, feeling less than deserving, have been getting more and more miserable. All I really want is to have a life with her outisde of her work. Is that too much to ask? If she is consumed by obligation now, at a job she hates, what's to happen when it's a job she loves? Will there ever be time for the two of us? This has been an on-going issue for us, from the start. She can't say no, except to me. Big priviledge, huh? What will happen is that I'll threaten her, she'll change for a few weeks, then slowly, it will go back to this, then I'll threaten her, she'll change, and so on and so on. I don't particularly like being the bad guy all the time. There has to be a better way..."

Did that ever take the wind out of my sails. You mean, I've been fighting the same battle since 1992? We didn't even have children.

I was right- there has to be a better way. We both deserve to end this fight. To find a way to make peace with who we are and what we want.

The urge to run poked it's familiar head up again today. It doesn't pull at me. It looks silly and tiring. I called a friend. Heard myself say the words again.